"People love to learn by examining visual representations of data. That's been proven time and time again by the popularity of both infographics and Pinterest. So what if you could make your own infographics? What would you make it of? It's actually easier than you think… even if you have zero design skills whatsoever.
Below are my two favorite infographic-making web 2.0 tools that I highly recommend. They both have pros and cons but in general are great for any beginner or novice designer. If Photoshop is a 4-letter word to you, then these sites are your friend. If you're a tech-savvy designer and illustrator, it can't hurt to check out some of the work on these two sites for inspiration."
a full featured web site creation package solely for the academic community. Scholars create web sites in seconds and can easily manage everything for themselves, for free.
loads of special effects, a range of nice fonts, and numerous shapes. It enables red eye reduction and also edits the exposure which are the most common problems faced by the photographers. It is fast and works well on different platforms as Mac, Windows and Linux. One of the most interesting features of Picnik is the support of the photosharing sites and the social networking sites. Registration in Picnik is not mandatory. It is required for some special services only. You are going to spoil your day if you forget your password because it does not have the 'Forgot your password' option to retrieve your password.
We started LearnZillion at E.L. Haynes Public Charter School in Washington, D.C. because we wanted to solve a problem. We knew what lessons our students needed but we didn't have enough time to teach each student the right lesson. To create more time, and to share best practices across classrooms, E.L. Haynes' teachers began to capture their expertise on screencasts. We posted them on a homemade website and coupled them with a short quiz to help us track student progress.
Soon the idea grew.
What if teachers from across the country could contribute to the site? What if new teachers could learn the new Common Core standards from the wisdom of experienced teachers? What if students could get a playlist of lessons that matched their needs? What if, over time, the video lessons got stronger and stronger, as more teachers contributed and the data showed which lessons had the biggest impact? Thanks to funding from the Next Generation Learning Challenge, NewSchools Venture Fund, Achievement Network, and others, we are about to find out!
No Significant Difference Phenomenon
This website has been designed to serve as a companion piece to Thomas L. Russell's book, "The No Significant Difference Phenomenon" (2001, IDECC, fifth edition). Mr. Russell's book is a fully indexed, comprehensive research bibliography of 355 research reports, summaries and papers that document no significant differences (NSD) in student outcomes between alternate modes of education delivery, with a foreword by Dr. Richard E. Clark. Previous editions of the book were provided electronically; the fifth edition is the first to be made available in print from IDECC (The International Distance Education Certification Center).
The primary purpose of the NSD website is to expand on the offerings from the book by providing access to appropriate studies published or discovered after the release of the book. In addition to studies that document no significant difference (NSD), the website includes studies which do document significant differences (SD) in student outcomes based on the mode of education delivery. Both types of entries may be searched:
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By year, through the left navigation menu;
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Through a simple keyword search, available at the top right of each page; or
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Through an advanced search.
This site is intended to function as an ever-growing repository of comparative media studies in education research. Both no significant differences (NSD) and significant differences (SD) studies are constantly being solicited for inclusion in the website. Please feel free to submit an entry.
Welcome to TEWT.org
Teaching English with Technology is dedicated to helping English & Language Arts teachers incorporate technology effectively into their classrooms and is presented by EdTechTeacher. EdTechTeacher and TEWT are led by Tom Daccord and Justin Reich, academic technology trainers, speakers, and authors.
Explore TEWT.org and find inquiry-based lessons, activities, and projects. Learn about new and emerging technologies such as blogs, podcasts, wikis, and online social networks, and explore innnovative ways of integrating them into the curriculum!
Become a member of TEWT and receive our quarterly newsletter. Contact us now and get early notification of our summer 2009 workshop with Carla Beard of Web English Teacher, or ask us about a customized workshop for your school.
Also, m ake sure to visit our sister site "Teaching History with Technology" at thwt.org and learn about incorporating technology effectively in the history and social studies classroom.
Make Use Of: tutorials, websites, hacks, and resources that you need to make technology work well for you - sign up for their newsletter to get a digest of their weekly scans of useful. Very much a "lifehacker" site.